Police denies protest permission to Naroda Patiya survivors

Apr 03, 2015, 09:08 IST
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PTI

Some of the Naroda Patiya 2002 riot victims claimed today here that police had denied permission to them to protest in front of the Gujarat High Court against its decision to grant bail to former minister Maya Kodnani and her assistant

Ahmedabad: Some of the Naroda Patiya 2002 riot victims claimed today here that police had denied permission to them to protest in front of the Gujarat High Court against its decision to grant bail to former minister Maya Kodnani and her assistant.

They also claimed that police had also denied them permission to protest in Naroda area of the city against the high court's decision. "First we sought permission to hold a demonstration in front of Gujarat High Court, but we were told to get permission from the High Court registrar.

Then we demanded to hold our demonstration at the Naroda Patiya state transport workshop, but we were denied permission," Salim Sheikh one of the survivor of the riot told PTI. Sheikh, who sought permission on March 23, said that they wanted to protest against the high court's decision to grant bail to two accused in the case.

"Salim Sheikh sought permission to sit on a dharna near the ST workshop (in the Naroda Patiya area) to protest from 4 PM to 7 PM on April 2 against the High Court's decision to grant bail of some of the riot case accused, but Naroda police inspector (R P Rana), ACP of 'G' division (J N Parmar) and DCP of Zone 4 (R P Barot) did a thorough consultation and decided to not permit the dharna," a letter sent by the city's Naroda police station to Sheikh stated.

Giving reasons for rejection of the application, it said that the venue is on a national highway and the time sought for the dharna was "peak hour" which could create traffic jams in the area. It added that the venue which was sought to hold dharna, comes under the jurisdiction of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and hence he had to seek permission from the local civic body.